


The Sin Eater

by LadyofAvalon



Series: The Scars Give It All Away [1]
Category: Bourne Legacy (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton is Aaron Cross, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofAvalon/pseuds/LadyofAvalon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can never forget that everything he is is a lie. He is their sin eater. That is all he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sin Eater

The security badge that hangs from his fatigues says a name that isn't his.

The name on the security badge is just another name, just another moment. It is just who he is for now. Soon he will be someone else and this name will be forgotten. That is how it always has been.

He is a good liar. He is a better liar than anyone here gives him credit for. They believe what he tells them, never stopping to think that his story may be just a little too absurd to be true. His cover story is as improbable as his aim is – but it works. It works because they want to believe it. He is an asset to them.

They have no idea how easy it is for him to disappear. If they look for him, he will never have existed. The man they think he is doesn't exist. He is just a story his superiors made up because they wanted him there.

He is their sin eater. He remembers those words from that mission so long ago. They haunt him. What he does is morally indefensible and absolutely necessary. It is only through what he does that they remain pure. He has blood on his hands – blood that _will never come off_ because he takes what they've done and he buries it farther than they will ever know.

That's why he's there. That's why he is a deep undercover agent in the middle of a division that technically doesn't exist. They know everything and everyone – if SHEILD doesn't know it, it's in the wind. Just like he is.

He finds it strange when he interacts with the agents, the ones who look at his badge and envy him because he has high level clearance. They forget that he worked for that – he worked for everything that he has. If he wasn't reporting everything SHIELD did to his superiors, he wants to believe he would be there anyway. He wants to believe that this could be who he is. He wants that more than anything.

He only wants it because he has never fit in anywhere. He has never been at home anywhere. He has buried who he was so deeply that he can barely remember anything besides the soul-crushing loneliness that was being Kenneth James Kitsom. He does not miss that.

Who he is now is different. In a somehow-maybe-almost-but-not-quite sense. Aaron is stronger than Kenneth. He has a purpose. He follows orders because that's what he was made for. That's what the chems that no one ever sees him take are for. The chems make him better. He likes being one of the best. It gives him something to believe in.

Then he can almost forget what he is. He can almost forget that he is Aaron Cross, an agent of Outcome rather than an agent of SHIELD. In that moment, being Clint Barton is almost within reach. He is happy to fool himself and say that he _is_ Clint Barton. Clint Barton had a past, a family, a brother. He was good at something – he was good _for_ something that is not a lie.

Everything he is is a lie. It bothers Clint – _Aaron_ – every moment of the day. He can never forget. He is their sin eater. That is all he is. That is all he is good for.

And then _she_ happens. She gets on SHIELD's radar in a bad way and they send him to kill her.

Funny. He thought it was just Outcome that made him a sin eater. Now SHIELD did, too.

They send him to Rome, to Flanders, to Liverpool, all in pursuit of the Black Widow. He only catches glimpses of her. She is a master of disguise and she is adept at hiding. She knows how to run. She knows when to run. In Rome, she is blond and gentle as the sun. In Flanders and Liverpool, brunette with hands dripping red.

She never quite sees him – he knows she can feel his gaze on her back when she looks up and squints before dropping her gaze. She never gives him a reason to shoot. Rather, she gives him reason after reason not to.

She falls off the map after Liverpool. There is a whisper that she is in Moscow, but no solid intel. He supposes he should have taken the shot when he had the chance, but there was always something that stopped him. The look on her face when she helped a lost little girl made his heart stop in Flanders, the smile when the girl goes home with her parents. He can name every single thing that kept him from shooting.

They send him to Budapest next. Budapest is chaos.

There are three opposing sides and she is working for one of them. They dance around each other for weeks. He misses her by seconds sometimes. Sometimes the collateral damage is too much for Coulson to justify. Then there was the night they both attended a diplomatic soirée. They never meet each other's eyes. They spin around each other. She knows he is watching her. He knows she is watching him. But the time is not right. She slips out on the arm of a diplomat and he returns to his hotel to get his gear.

Then he waits. He waits and waits and then he gets his chance. It is past midnight in the city and she is running from someone that is not him.

It only takes minutes for him to corner her hold an arrow to her throat.

Her hair is red in Budapest, the color of fresh blood. But the moment he looks into her sinfully green eyes, he _knows_. She has so much blood on her hands. Her ledger is dripping with red. But she is like him. If she is a monster, so is he.

For a moment, there are no chems, there is no Aaron Cross. There is no sin eater.

When he looks into her eyes, Clint Barton is real. Her offers her a chance.


End file.
